It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 Post by Jessica

We've been busy at the Schwind household these last couple of weeks, decorating, cooking and celebrating the season! It's June and Jude's first Christmas and I can't be more excited to share in this time with them. Pretty soon after Thanksgiving, John and I brought out the few Christmas decorations we moved from California, but thankfully mom also had some we could borrow as well. One afternoon, Dad, John, the babies and I loaded up two vehicles to drive to a Christmas tree farm to pick out the tree. I'm usually pretty particular about the tree. Sometimes it takes me a while to pick one out, but nothing will make you find one fast like a couple of squirmy babies! Wouldn't it be great to own a Christmas tree farm? Or at least to plant your own trees? I've been trying to come up with ways to make a little money on the side at the farm and this was one of the ideas. That and maybe a pumpkin patch/corn maze :) 

 Pops chopping down the tree

 Loading up the car

Babies' 1st Tree

We decided to put up the tree in the office/sitting room since there really was no other place to do it. In order to do so, we had to move out the couch and coffee table and place them in the guest room (which it now, because of this and the fact that we use it as our 'secret' wrapping room, looks like a disaster zone). This freed up a big area for the babies to play in the middle of the floor. I really didn't want our house to be overtaken by toys (who does?!?!), but it has (in only 7-months!). Regardless, it's been nice to have a designated 'play' area for the babies. I'm even tempted to leave the couch and coffee table packed away for this very reason after Christmas is over. The one downfall right now of having the 'play area' next to the tree is the babies opening the gifts. June is the worst of all. She will hone in on a gift and will not leave it alone for the rest of day until tomorrow when she finds another gift she's interested in destroying.

This year, we did most of our shopping online. While we've saved a lot of time (shopping with twins is not the most relaxing pasttime) and money (no tax! Thanks Amazon!), the UPS, fedex and mailman all hate us. In fact, on the same day, the UPS man said that he wished we lived closer to town if he's going to keep coming out here and the mailman said she's going to stop getting out to deliver packages because Rex is getting too rowdy for her. Oh well, 'tis the season while living out in the middle of nowhere! I finally finished sewing/embroidering June and Jude's stocking, so they could join the rest of the ones I made. A couple of long nights and one near meltdown later, they are now proudly hanging on the mantel! I have officially run out of matching fabric though and I can't find it anywhere, so that means no more dogs/kids for us! I mean I can't be expected to redo everyone's stocking again, right?

 Our Christmas tree all decorated!

 Jude's new play area

Running out of room!

Cheap find at Target.com! Only 17.50! 

 All of our wonderful Christmas cards :)

June unwrapping the presents

A friend told me about a cool Christmas tradition that she has (thanks Jenica!). She gives her children ornaments with a particular theme each year for Christmas, so that when they move out and get a tree, they have ornaments to fill it with as well! John and I loved the idea and thought that it would be a tradition we would also like to start with June and Jude. We looked at the Hallmark keepsake ornament collection and decided that we wanted to do 'snowmen' themes for the both of them (different snowmen between the both of them though). For their first ornaments, there were cute snowmen in mugs that read 'son' and 'daughter', so we bought them. I also bought a cute little snowmen family that had a mom, dad, son and daughter and a cute 1st in the series partridge in a pear tree ornament from the "12 Days of Christmas" series they came out with this year. I'm going to have to wait 12 years though before I collect them all! I can see how this ornament collecting can get out of hand ;)   

 June and Jude's 1st ornaments

Snowman Family Ornament

 Partridge in a Pear Tree

Of course, no 1st Christmas would be complete without a visit to go see Santa! And I went all out for their first meeting...and by all out I mean I bought extremely cute outfits and EVEN put shoes on my babies (something I'm not known for)! I thought the meeting would be pretty uneventful since they were still so young. If anything, I thought it would be Jude who would be the one to cry because he's been ultra clingy lately. Boy, was I wrong. The babies were  fine up until Santa started talking to them. June turned around to see where the voice was coming from, saw him and then melted down. Jude was just as cool as a cucumber. I took a look at the final pictures and they were horrible. HAHA! Since they were charging $30 for the professional photos (yes, highway robbery), they said we could try for a second time. So, we took them up on their offer, calmed her down by walking around the mall and then finally got a good shot. Once Santa started talking though, she melted down again. I can only imagine what next year is going to be like! 

Looking up at Santa...

...and then the meltdown! Is it wrong that this picture makes me laugh everytime I look at it? LOL!

The final shot

June and Jude also met another one of Santa's 'helpers' at church after the annual Christmas play. This one wasn't quite as polished (haha!), but he still gave them something to look at :) I downloaded a new app on my iphone (Instagram) which allows me to play around with the pictures, so that's why these look a little different. I like the effect though...

 Not so sure about this!

Hey mister, you look funny!

There are more pictures to come from Christmas, so stay tuned!